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Annoying Trick or Treaters

On Halloween, what’s better than snuggling up on your couch, popping a bag of buttery popcorn, and binge watching scary movies all night? Then the doorbell rings. It’s a group of trick-or-treaters. You pause your movie, get up, dole out the candy, and then sit back down.

You don’t want to be “that jerk” with the porch light off and no candy on Halloween. But is it too much to ask to be able to watch Hellraiser or Children of the Corn uninterrupted?

The struggle is real. Netflix thinks it has the answer.

Say hello to the Netflix Halloween Doorbell. It’s a contraption that goes over your existing doorbell that “plays spooky sounds and music from your favorite Netflix shows.”

In other words, the device can blast the theme song to Stranger Things, for instance, while alerting trick-or-treaters to the tub of chocolates you stashed on your porch.

That means you’re free to Netflix and chill. All. Night. Long.

Oh, wait, of course there’s a catch: You have to build the darn thing yourself. Netflix outlines all the supplies you need and even offers instructions for how to create it from scratch.

As neat as this may seem, I doubt many people will enthusiastically figure out how to wire an Arduino Pro Trinket 5 or 3v microcontroller to a battery, LCD screen, an MP3 player, etc. etc. As they say, the ROI just isn’t worth it.